When ‘end of life care’ goes wrong
by Tim Dieppe, Christian Concern:
Head of Public Policy Tim Dieppe discusses a new report on end-of-life care.
Last week, I attended the parliamentary launch of a sobering report on end-of-life care. The report was prepared by the Lords and Commons Family and Child Protection Group (LCFCPG). The meeting was hosted by Danny Kruger MP and Carla Lockhart MP, who wrote the Foreword to the report. The report shows that far too many patients in the UK are being subjected to illegal and inhumane standards of care at the end of life.
Substantial report
The substantial 234-page report, titled: “When ‘End of Life Care’ Goes Wrong”, is available for purchase here. Contributors to the report include Professor Sam H. Ahmedzai, emeritus professor of palliative medicine, and former chair of the NICE guideline committee for the care of the dying adult. Another contributor is experienced barrister James Bogle who has advocated in a number of high profile cases such as the tragic case of Archie Battersbee last year, and also in the case of RS – a middle-aged man who was dehydrated to death by court order in 2021.
The substance of the report is a detailed analysis of 16 case studies where end of life care of a patient went wrong. These ages of the patients in the case studies range from 21 to 94, and their deaths occurred between 2012 and 2021. Twelve of these deaths occurred on hospitals, two in hospices, two under hospice care at home, and one in a care home. The case studies are drawn from over 600 examples of end-of-life care falling short of expected standards that were submitted to the group as part of the investigation. They are described as “the tip of a very large iceberg.”
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